Archive for the ‘Malla Raji Reddy’ Category

KARIMNAGAR: CPI Maoist Central Committee Member Malla Raji Reddy alias Sattenna, arrested along with his wife and Maoist Sangita, by the AP Police in Anganamaly in Kerala on December 18, was produced before the First Class Judicial Magistrate of Metpally amid tight security.

The magistrate remanded him to 14 days judicial custody and refused to send him to police custody.

A native of Shastrulapalli village in the district, the 57-year-old senior Maoist leader carried a reward of Rs 12 lakh on his head.

Raji Reddy, who studied upto Intermediate, was attracted to the movement and joined the Radical Students Union in 1975 and attended the second district conference two years later.

He participated in the military camp in the forest area of Tadicherla prior to December 1999 where another senior leader Nalla Adi Reddy alias Shyam, Erram Reddy, Santhosh Reddy, Sheelam Naresh and PWG member Singam Lachi Rajam were killed in an encounter.

He was arrested by the Dharmapuri police in 1977 and went underground after release.

He worked as dalam member and leader in Mathani, Mahadevpur areas between 1977 and 1981.

He also worked in Maharashtra forest division and Bastar area in Madhya Pradesh (now Chhattisgarh) till 1996 and was elevated as Central Organising committee of PWG in 1997.

He was involved in unearthing of a huge cache of weapons and cash at Bangalore in 1992, attack on Sirpur police station in Adilabad killing a Sub-Inspector and 12 constables in 1986.

He attacked Karakagudem police station in Khammam district killing 16 police personnel and took away 32 weapons with 1,624 rounds of ammunition, blasted six landmines and an equal number of claymore mines at Kusansur in Gadchiroli district killing six policemen in 1998 and snatched Rs 4.4 lakh from the RPF Jawans in Mudkhed-Hyderabad train.

The top Maoist leader, involved in 21 cases was not allowed to talk to media and only his daughter Latha and his advocate BSA Satyanarayana were permitted to talk to him.

In another blow to the revolutionary movement, two women, suspected to be members of CPI (Maoist), were shot dead in an alleged exchange of fire near Tiger Camp in the Rampachodavaram agency area on Friday.

The police recovered five weapons, including three 303 guns and two 12 bore guns, from the spot.

KOCHI: Malla Raji Reddy, 57, also known as Sattenna, a member of the Maoist central committee, was handed over to the Special Police team of Andhra Pradesh police.

Reddy was arrested, along with Suguna, 30, a tribal woman, by a special police team from Andhra Pradesh near Little Flower Hospital, Angamaly, on Monday.

When the Andhra police sought transit warrant for the two after presenting them before the Judicial First Class Magistrate-II, Aluva, near here, on Wednesday, the Magistrate first remanded them to judicial custody for 14 days. However, the Magistrate, later, issued transit warrant after the Andhra Pradesh police told the court that the accused would be produced before Manthani Court in Karimnagar district before December 22.

Four warrants were issued against Reddy and one against Suguna.

Reddy is from Karimnagar district in Andhra Pradesh and is in charge of the revolutionary movement in the southwest regional bureau of the Maoists, which includes Kerala, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat.

The police said he had been evading arrest for nearly 39 years. “I came to Kerala on December 14 with the aim of taking the revolution forward,” Reddy told presspersons on the court premises. However, he denied planning any action inside the State.

Asked by Magistrate Sreekala Suresh if he had anything to say, Reddy said that all cases against him were false. “We stand for revolution and revolution is the only way to serve public. The State will have to be replaced using revolution,” he told the court.

KOCHI: The city police have swung to action following the arrest of a top Maoist leader from the city suburbs.

Malla Raji Reddy was arrested by a special team of the Andhra Pradesh police on Monday near Little Flower Hospital, Angamali, on Monday.

The police have now let out a notice to all contractors employing labourers from the other States to provide photos and other identification documents of labourers to the Special Branch office.

This instruction is in the light of detecting support base for political extremists among the migrant labourer community, said a release issued by the office of the City Police Commissioner.

Hotels and other institutions that employ migrant workers should also file details of their employees with the Special Branch. Strict action will be initiated against those who fail to comply with the instruction, the release said.

The public have been urged to pass on information regarding anyone found suspicious to the Kochi City Special Branch at telephone number 2394650.

ALUVA (KERALA): Malla Raji Reddy, a top Maoist leader and a woman associate, who were arrested here a few days ago, was produced before the Judicial First Class Magistrate and remanded to 14 days judicial custody on Wednesday.

Reddy, wanted in several cases in Andhra Pradesh and a member of the Central committee of the Peoples War Group had been arrested from Angamaly in Ernakulam district two days ago.

Reddy was taken to the sub jail here, while the woman was lodged in the Muvattupuzha sub jail. Earlier,the court rejected the Andhra Pradesh police team’s request for a transit warrant on technical grounds following which they were remanded here.

There was heavy security in and around the court complex when the two were brought in. Andhra Pradesh DYSP and Circle Inspector accompanied the two to the court along with their Kerala counterparts.

Meanwhile, the arrest of the top Naxalite leader raised concerns over the likely links between a large number of migrant population across Kerala and the Naxalites.

Police said even though no incident of extremist-migrant labourer connection has surfaced, the migrant population can provide safe hideouts to extremists working underground.

With lot of workers from Bihar, Assam and West Bengal and Tamil Nadu working in Kerala in the construction industry, the employers have been asked to provide photo identity cards to these workers and submit copies to the police in the light of the recent incident.

HYDERABAD: The Maoist party never had it so bad what with a series of arrests of top leaders in the last fortnight and among all those arrested NFDC secretary Sagar is turning out to be the trump card for the AP police, especially SIB.

The latest arrest of Maoist central committee leader and politburo member Malla Raji Reddy alias Sattenna (55) in Kerala has come as a prize catch for the SIB as Raji Reddy is among the top 5 in the all-India Maoist hierarchy. Unlike in the past, the government is treading cautiously on the issue of encounters with the talk of elections gaining ground in the state. Sources told TOI that the government cannot take chances by earning a bad name in the eyes of the public.

The fact that the chief minister and the home minister have assured that Raji Reddy will be produced in court reveals that the government is treading cautiously on the issue.

Some time ago a Maoist leader who was arrested in Kollam by the AP police was later killed in an ‘encounter’, which created a lot of furore. “Now, the intelligence sleuths have changed tack. The arrest of Raji Reddy would not have been possible without Sagar providing vital clues to the sleuths. Apart from assuring Sagar that no harm will be done to him, they are culling out as much information as possible about Maoist leaders,” a top police official involved in anti-naxal operations said.

Considered to be a close aide of top Maoist leader Ganapathi, Raji Reddy was involved in framing party strategies and counter-offensive tactics.

Younger brother of another top leader Mallojula Koteswara Rao, Raji Reddy was picked up by a special party police team of AP near Ernakulam around 7.30 pm on Sunday. Police sources said Raji Reddy was hiding among migrant labourers when he was arrested.

Not only was Raji Reddy carrying out important operations in the Dandakaranya region, he was involved in a number of attacks on police stations, looting of weapons, murders, abductions and landmine blasts in Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh.

He carries a reward of Rs 15 lakh on his head. Hailing from Shastrulapally village of Manthani mandal in Karimnagar district, Raji Reddy went underground in 1977.

Writer and Maoist ideologue Varavara Rao said though the government has assured that no harm will be done to Raji Reddy, he demanded that the veteran leader be produced before court immediately. Sources told TOI that intelligence sleuths would interrogate Raji Reddy before producing him in court.

Stoutly disputing that the Maoist movement will be weakened with the arrest of Raji Reddy, Varavara says: “Leaders may come and go. The same was said when central committee members Sande Rajamouli and Chandramouli were arrested and bumped off in fake encounters. The movement for land for poor will go on irrespective of leaders”.

However, another top police officer said Raji Reddy’s arrest is a major setback to the party as decision-making will be severely hampered at the top level. He said the latest arrest has come as a shot in the arm for police.Times of India

Top leader’s arrest a big blow to Maoist movement K. Srinivas Reddy

Malla Raji Reddy was in charge of the revolutionary movement in the south west regional bureau

Reddy was underground for over three decades

He was a member of the Maoist Central Committee

HYDERABAD: The Maoists made headlines with the jailbreak in Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh on Sunday, but intelligence sleuths gave them a big jolt by ensnaring a top leader in Ernakulam district of Kerala just a day later.

The arrest of Malla Raji Reddy, alias Sattenna, a member of the Maoist Central Committee, in Angamaly town, is considered a big blow to the Maoist movement. Reddy hails from Karimnagar district of Andhra Pradesh and is in charge of the revolutionary movement in the south west regional bureau (SWRB), which includes Kerala, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat.

Reddy, who has been underground for over three decades, is one of the seniormost Maoist leaders and a contemporary of Maoist chief Ganapathy. He is now a member of the Polit Bureau and the Central Committee.

The arrest comes in the backdrop of a series of reverses the Maoists have faced in several States, notwithstanding their capabilities to inflict deadly blows on security forces in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Bihar.

If the Maoist writ runs in the Dandakaranya forest belt — from Gadchiroli in Maharashtra to Bastar in Chhattisgarh — law enforcement agencies are gaining the upper hand in other parts of the country.

Through coordinated, intelligence-driven operations, the police have arrested or killed senior leaders in the last two years. In Jharkhand, Misir Besra, a Central Committee Member (CCM) was arrested in September last.

This was preceded by the arrest of Krishnan Srinivasan, secretary of the Maharashtra Maoist wing, in Mumbai (August 2007); the killing of Sande Rajamouli, CCM, in Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh (June 2007); the killing of Wadkapur Chandramouli, CCM, in Visakhapatnam (December, 2006); the arrest of Sheela Marandi, CCM and wife of Kishan Da, senior leader and CCM, in Jharkhand; the killing of Burra Chinnaiah, Andhra Pradesh committee secretary; and Matta Ravi Kumar, Andhra Pradesh committee member (July and June 2006).

In 2006, the Andhra Pradesh police arrested Narayan Sanyal, senior naxal leader, in Khammam. In 2005, another top leader Maimuddin alias Ravi, in charge of the north Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, was gunned down in East Champaran, Bihar, while two senior leaders Sudhil Roy and Patitpaban Haldar were arrested in west Midnapore, West Bengal.

Maoists active in Kerala?

Dennis Marcus Mathew reports from Alappuzha:

Malla Raji Reddy is the second Central Committee member to be apprehended here.

On June 22, Sande Rajamouli was reportedly arrested in Kollam, though the police deny this.Kerala Home Minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan told the Assembly on September 19 that the State police had been directed to tighten vigil across the Kerala-Tamil Nadu border. This followed Tamil Nadu Maoist secretary Sundaramoorthy’s reported police confession that he had lived in Nedumkandam and other areas of Idukki district for eight months.

However, Mr. Balakrishnan told The Hindu in Alappuzha on November 20 that the State was not facing any kind of naxalite threat.

According to sources, a meeting of the Maoist Central Committee, held between January 28 and 31, discussed in detail the organisation’s activities in Kerala.

The SWRB resolutions in the meeting, sources said, contained details crucial to Kerala. More important, the directions to the Kerala committee were to continue focussing on the “Tamil Nadu perspective area,” which possibly denotes the borders of Tamil Nadu and Kerala, particularly Wayanad, where there have been earlier reports of Naxalite activity.

Top Communist Party of India-Maoist leader and Central Committee member Malla Raji Reddy alias Sattanna — who carries a reward of Rs 12 lakh on his head — has been reportedly arrested by a special police party from Andhra Pradesh from a hide-out in Kerala [Images] late on Monday night.

Though Andhra Pradesh police has not confirmed the arrest of Sattanna so far, Revolutionary Writer Association founder Varavara Rao alleged that the Maoist leader was taken into custody by a special police party from Angamaly in Ernakulam district in Kerala on a specific tip-off that he was hiding among migrant labourers. A tribal woman, who was suspected to be assisting him in underground activities, was also arrested by the police.

Demanding that AP police produce Sattanna in a court of law immediately, Varavara Rao told the media that he feared a threat to the life of the central committee member, since there were instances earlier when Maoist leaders who were picked up AP police were killed in fake encounters. Three central committee members of CPI-ML (People’s War) were nabbed from Bangalore and later killed in a fake encounter in December 1999. Two other central committee members were arrested and shot dead in fake encounters.

“We fear that the same would happen in the case of Raji Reddy. We have reliable information about the arrest of Raji Reddy along with a woman in Ernakulam. A lot of people who were witness to the arrest had also gone to the police station. Raji Reddy should be produced in the court immediately,” Varavara Rao said.

Hailing from Shastrulapalli village in Manthani area of Karimnagar district in Andhra Pradesh, Sattanna has been underground for the past 32 years. He worked in his native district before donning higher responsibilities in the Naxalite movement. He is wanted for a number of cases, including murders, abductions, landmine blasts and attacks on police stations and looting of weapons. He is a suspect behind the killing of former AP Assembly speaker D Sripada Rao.